For breakfast he ate a bran muffin, apples, handfuls of fresh alfalfa, baby carrots mixed in with sweet grain and canola meal followed by a pile of hay. Best of all he appreciates a big tub of clean cold water to wash it all down.
After his breakfast I tortured him with a beach ball and introduced him to having a halter waved above his head. I cannot walk yet because I'm recovering from ankle replacement surgery so I have to do all my gentling from the other side of the fence. I have got him to lead a little bit along the fence! I put on his lead rope and saying "come on" and he will go along the fence with me as I hobble along on my crutches. Wildairo has to cooperate with me by coming to the fence. If I push him too hard he walks away but the funny thing is when I call him back he can't resist it and comes right to me.
Brad goes in the pen with Wildairo and I hate it for two reasons; I'm jealous and Brad doesn't know what he's doing! He will disagree with that though.
Here are the photos of 'a day in the life of Wildairo'.
Wildairo ending up putting his nose through the halters nose band. I want to get him ready to have his new halter put over his old one so he gets used to being haltered. I hate to have him wear a halter all the time.
When Brad was in the pen, Wildairo turned his business end to Brad a couple of times as a warning. This is something I won't put up with but Brad seems a bit oblivious. During the first few days I had give Wildairo a very quick hard slap across his mouth for trying to bite me through the fence. I also give him a bum slap and shout for raising his back foot at me. Now Wildairo won't even put his ears back at me because he gets a loud "No"! Soon as he knew I was the new herd leader he was more than fine with it. I'm sure when I can go into the pen with him I'm going to have to go over a few thing's with him so he understands I'm the boss on both sides of the fence.
He's a quick learner and is a very loving horse. I call his name and he nickers back to me. He's feeling safe and is trusting me and it's a very wonderful feeling. I've owned horses since 1970 and I've never felt this way before. I love my Mustang!
1 comment:
Arlene,
I’m so excited for you with your mustang! Is he your first? All I can suggest with that little sorrel is that if you can’t stop thinking about him, if it feels like the right thing to do, and they track him down then maybe it is meant to be.
I get along great with my mustangs. They always keep me on my toes and make me laugh about something. I got them when they were 6 months old so my experience might be a little different. They are my first mustangs, foals, and training experience. It might have been a little bit more difficult having two instead of one. We never had them in separate pens either.
At first I spent a lot of time sitting with them while they ate and hand feeding them and talking to them. I was able to get their neck tags off within the first week or two and Shoni tried to bite me once while I was doing that. I tried to keep both of them equal with their training. What I did to one I would do to the other.
We ended up with a small crisis since they were so young and were growing. The halters were getting snug on their noses (especially Shoni) so I had to rush gentling them. I had to use the bamboo pole method (10ft pvc pipe with socks taped to the end). Once I used that and got Shoni’s halter off she was a different horse. She was not as flighty unless Tabasco was running around.
I tried the bamboo pole method with Tabasco and he could not quite grasp it. He would let me get so close then FREAK out and bolt! So after about a month of that I finally decided to bribe him with oats in a bucket that was hooked to a fence. I made him walk so that his right side was facing me (this was his scary side) I’d let him eat some oats then I reached out and was able to unlatch the clasp. This scared him and he ran off a couple of horse lengths. Then the halter fell off. Ever since that he too has been a completely different horse. His was night and day difference though. He went from being a timid flighty horse to a in your face “what ya got there” curious horse that you could walk up to and pet all over.
I have never regretted getting my two mustangs. I love them both very much and can’t imagine not having them. We have our up and down days but we always pull through. It was more time consuming since there were two horses to work with and it maybe took a little longer to gentle them because of that but also because of my inexperience.
It is double the time, double the work, double the ups and the downs, but also triple the rewards and triple the love.
If you do decide to get the second mustang (or just stick with the one) and have questions or need help there are lots of people that you can talk to. Between the BLM, other mustang bloggers, and wild horse mentors there are lots of resources available. Most are horse lovers and enjoy helping out.
Also I thought you might enjoy these mustang links:
http://mustangs4us.com/oregon.htm#BEATYS%20BUTTE%20HERD%20MANAGEMENT%20AREA (Your mustangs herd info)
http://KBRHorse.net (good training ideas site and has a list of mentors)
Can’t wait to read more about your mustang and sorry this was so LONG! :) If you ever have any questions or need help please don’t hesitate to ask!!!
Good Luck!
Nikki~
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